Stephen Triplett has distributed ASAP’s Local Food Guide in the community for two decades. You can find the 2023 Local Food Guide at local businesses, community centers, and farmers markets starting May 1.
When did you start distributing ASAP’s Local Food Guide?
I think it was around 2002, 2003. A friend of mine, Erin Everett, was the publisher of local health food publication, New Life Journal, and she had asked me if I wanted to do their distribution. I thought I would just drop it off at Earth Fare and maybe a handful of places, but it kept growing and growing. Charlie [Jackson, ASAP founder] knew Erin and they worked out a deal where the Local Food Guide could piggyback on New Life Journal’s distribution. When New Life Journal went out of business in 2009, ASAP asked if I would like to continue, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Have you seen enthusiasm for local food change in that time?
Over the years there’s been a lot more people identifying with and wanting to support local, especially farmers and local food. It’s done nothing but grown. But in the past few years, tourists are really picking up the Local Food Guide and using it to help them find places to eat and learn about the area. For example, the airport: When we first started taking guides to them, they didn’t move. But in the last three or four years—man, I can’t bring enough. Now they’re adding seven gates, you know. With the rate they’re expanding, I joked to David King [Guest Services and Advertising Manager], “You want me to start bringing these in on a tractor trailer?” With the Asheville Visitors Center on Montford, it’s the same story. Five or six years ago I started taking guides to the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitors Center. They had tight rules around free publications. They said, “People come from out of town, they don’t want local food.” Cut to the chase, now I can’t keep enough in there.
You’ve really become an ambassador for the Local Food Guide out in the community, convincing places give space for the publication.
It can be a battle, I’m not kidding! There have been so many publications in Asheville through the years. And remember, we’re a free thing, so businesses are doing us a service. They could be using that space for their own retail. But I go in person, bring in a bundle, and smile. I talk about how this is a hugely popular service for local food and most of the time people are really positive about that. I might make a joke like, “These are free, but I can autograph it for you.” Getting people laughing is a good way to get in, get them to trust me. But then they see how customers really want the guides and they ask for more.
What are some of your favorite delivery spots?
I love the local companies. I really like going into Mast General Store, Sow True Seed. French Broad Chocolate Lounge is always a good one. Really good people at Foothills Butcher Bar out in Black Mountain.
What are you up to when you’re not delivering Local Food Guides?
I do other jobs as well, landscaping and I work for a small property management company in Montford, gardening. I’ve done marketing jobs as a brand ambassador, though not as much since the pandemic. I really enjoy my hobbies. I have a 16-foot Old Town canoe. I love canoeing, hiking, and camping, especially trips up the James River in Virginia. And I love going to tailgate markets. There’s a small one out where I live in Mills River on Saturday mornings. Don’t you just love when the tailgate markets start bringing in blueberries, strawberries, spinach, broccoli, fresh greens?